| Ambient house | |
|---|---|
| Other names | New Age house[1] |
| Stylistic origins | |
| Cultural origins | Late 1980s,United Kingdom andJapan |
| Derivative forms | |
| Other topics | |
| Ambient music artists,chill-out music | |
Ambient house is adowntempo[2] subgenre ofhouse music that first emerged in the late 1980s, combining elements ofacid house andambient music. The genre developed inchill-out rooms and specialist clubs as part of the UK's dance music scene.[2] It was most prominently pioneered bythe Orb andthe KLF, along with artists such asGlobal Communication,Irresistible Force,Youth, and808 State.[2][3] The term was used vaguely, and eventually fell out of favor as more specific subgenres were recognized.[4]
AllMusic describes "ambient house" as an "early categorical marker" for music "appropriating certain primary elements ofacid house music – midtempo,four-on-the-floor beats; synth pads and strings; soaring vocal samples – used in a dreamier, more atmospheric fashion".[4]Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World noted common elements: repeated synthesizerarpeggios that are gradually modulated; reverbed snippets of dialogue from film, radio, orrelaxation tapes; and samples of other musical works drifting in and out of the mix.[2]
Ambient house is sometimes conflated with "chill-out",[5] and AllMusic acknowledges that the term "ambient house" is now rarely used, replaced by a morass of more specific genres and terms.[4]
Ambient house was, in the words of John Bush ofAllMusic, "virtually invented" by UK bandthe Orb –Alex Paterson andJimmy Cauty – during The Land of Oz events at the night-clubHeaven,[6] while Dom Phillips atMixmag has said the Orb "kickstarted the whole ambient business".[7]Neil McCormick has similarly credited Cauty and Paterson with inventing the genre, inThe Daily Telegraph.[8] In 1989,Paul Oakenfold ran theacid house night atHeaven, and Paterson ran a chill-out counterpart in the White Room with Cauty andYouth.[9] There, Paterson spunBrian Eno,Pink Floyd, and10CC songs at low volume and accompanied them with multiscreen video projections.[10] Around the same time, in theEast End ofLondon, so-called spacetime parties were held atCable Street. These parties, organized byJonah Sharp, were designed to encourage conversation rather than dance, and featuredMixmaster Morris (also known as the Irresistible Force),[10] another pioneer of the genre.[4]
The Orb released the twenty-minute track "A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules from the Centre of the Ultraworld" as a single in October 1989, making it to the UK singles chart at No. 78. The track featured "bright, translucent sounds" and "tinkl[ing]" keyboards, as well as heavily samplingMinnie Riperton's "Lovin' You".[11] Other early ambient house records included "Sueño Latino" (1989) by theItalian group of the same name (based onManuel Gottsching's 1984 albumE2-E4), "Pacific State" (1989) by808 State, "Flotation" (1990) bythe Grid, "Paradise" (1989) by Quadrophenia, "Journeys Into Rhythm" (1989) by Audio One, and "Natural Thing" (1990) byInnocence.[10]
In February 1990, Cauty's other bandthe KLF, a partnership withBill Drummond, released the albumChill Out:[12] "one of the initial works in the ambient house canon" and "essential" according to John Bush at AllMusic,[13] "one of the most influential records in ambient house music" according toPitchfork,[14] and an album with which the KLF were "claiming pre-eminence in the ambient house field" (Ira Robbins ofTrouser Press).[15] In a press release forChill Out,Scott Piering claimed that the term "ambient house" had been invented "off-the-cuff" by the KLF.[16] After leaving the Orb in April 1990,[6] Cauty finished work onSpace,[17] which was originally intended to be the Orb's debut album,[9][18] and Paterson's Orb went on to create the single "Little Fluffy Clouds" withYouth,[9] both important works of ambient house. The KLF retired from the music industry in 1992,[19] In 1991, the Orb released the albumThe Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld, featuring both of their previous singles. CombiningMoog synthesizers with religiouschorales and audio clips of theApollo 11 rocket launch, the Orb popularized the "spacy" sound of ambient house.[11] The album would influence subsequentdub influenced electronic music.[20]
Ambient house became a label for artists beyond the KLF and the Orb, includingIrresistible Force,the Future Sound of London, andOrbital.[4]Ultramarine's 1991 albumEvery Man and Woman is a Star was also lumped in with the chillout/ambient house scene of the Orb and the KLF.[21] Other ambient house recordings emerged by artists such asthe Grid ("Flotation" in 1990), Interplay ("Synthesis" in 1991), and the Future Sound of London ("Papua New Guinea" in 1991).[2] In 1992, the Orb released the single "Blue Room" which was to become their most successful, reaching eighth place in theUK singles chart. At forty minutes, it was the longest single to reach the UK charts.[22] An edited form of it appeared on the Orb albumU.F.Orb later that year.U.F.Orb reached No. 1 in the UK albums chart;AllMusic called it "the commercial and artistic peak of the ambient-house movement."[23] In the years after the release of their live album,Live 93, the Orb largely stopped their ambient-house music production, instead concentrating on producing more "metallic" music.[11]
In 1994,Global Communication released their largely beat-free album76:14;AllMusic called it "a notable high point of the ambient house movement."[24]Slant Magazine called it "one of several universally celebrated ambient house records," and labeled each track "its own spacey symphony, etched with ticking clocks, soft piano lines and tidal white noise."[25]
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